Electronic book readers - Which one is right for you?

Electronic Book Readers

Which electronic book reader is right for you? There are five main criteria I look for when purchasing an electronic book reader. They are:

1. Easy on the eyes in order to prevent eye strain

2. Expandability

3. Ease of use

4. Easy access to large quantities of books

5. The ability to download ebook management software

There are a number of good ebook readers on the market today – and the market is expanding rapidly – which utilize E-Ink screen technology. This technology allows the reader to view a display that is like reading ink on paper and can be fully viewed in direct sunlight. This differs from the backlighting that is prevalent on computers and LCD screens. As a result, you can read the screen with no glare and you are less likely to suffer from eye strain which is common amongst computer users. Most of the leading brands like Sony, Kindle, and Barnes and Noble Nook ebook use the E-Ink technology.

The second feature that I look for whenever I purchase electronics is expandability. The Sony Digital Reader Touch Edition (PRS600BC) comes with a 6” display which holds up to 350 books. What I like about this reader is that it comes with a wide variety of formats and you can also use a memory stick Pro Duo TM and SD media 10 compatible. As a result, you can use of to a 16g SD chip in this reader. If you want to carry around your music this feature also enables the reader to be substituted for a mp3 player as well.

Another important consideration is the “Ease of Use”. With the Sony touch you can just turn the pages with a swipe of a finger and enjoy fast intuitive navigation capabilities. This device also enables you to highlight passages and to hand write notes in the books that you are viewing. The Sony (PRS600BC) also comes with a number of fonts so that you can change the letter sizes to ensure that you are reading whatever sized text is most suitable for you. It also comes with a zoom in and out capability for reading text.

 Sony offers 3G  wireless capability with the PRS900BCKIT model. It comes with a 7" screen and approximately 1.6GB of memory onboard. This way you can download content on the go.

Kindle offers the electronic reader in both the 6” and a 9.7” screen. You can get the Kindle Wi-Fi, the Kindle 3G plus Wi-Fi and the Kindle DX. Apparently the Kindle electronic book readers can store up to 3,500 books. With the Wi-Fi turned off then the battery life can be up to a month.

Apparently the Kindle electronic reader has been the number one seller on Amazon.com for the past two years.

Barnes and Noble also offers the Nook Ebook reader with Wi-Fi plus 3G capability. It also uses E-Ink technology, has a 16 level gray scale display, and offers five font sizes so that you can read with ease.

A very important consideration for me is the ability to download ebook management software. One I would recommend and is free is Calibre Ebook Management software. It is open sourced and Wikipedia says the following about it:

“Calibre is a free and open source e-book management tool that allows one to organise, save and manage e-books, in and between a variety of formats^[1]. It also supports e-book syncing with a variety of popular e-book readers. Calibre is cross-platform (programmed in Python and C) and is intended for the three main operating systems, Linux, Mac OS X and Windows^[1].

Features

Calibre's main interface.

[edit] Library Management

Calibre is primarily an e-book cataloging program. It is designed around the concept of the logical book, where a single database entry corresponds with the same book in a variety of formats.

Calibre supports sorting the books in its database by:

• Title
• Author
• Date
• Publisher
• Rating
• Size (Max size of all formats)
• Series

It also supports extra metadata fields that can be searched on:

• Comments: A general purpose field that can be used to describe the book.
• Tags: A flexible system to categorise books.

Calibre also supports metadata retrieval via the Internet for a book based on its ISBN number or its title/author, instead of manually entering the metadata^[1].

[edit] Format Conversion

Calibre supports the conversion of many input formats to many output formats. It can convert every input format in the following list, to every output format.

Input Formats: CBZ, CBR, CBC, CHM, EPUB, FB2, HTML, LIT, LRF, MOBI, ODT, PDB, PDF, PML, PRC^, RB, RTF, TCR, TXT

Output Formats: EPUB, FB2, LIT, LRF, MOBI, OEB, PDB, PDF, PML, RB, RTF, TCR, TXT.

(^PRC is a generic format, calibre supports PRC files with TextRead and MOBIBook headers)

Format conversion includes support for advanced typesetting features like tables, dropcaps, inline images, and embedded fonts.

Syncing

Calibre currently supports the Sony PRS 300/500/505/600/700/900, Cybook Gen 3, BeBook (mini), Amazon Kindle (1, 2, (international and DX), and 3), iPhone (with Lexcycle Stanza reader software), and Android phones (with the WordPlayer reader software). Version 0.6.27 (December 11, 2009) added support for the Barnes & Noble Nook.^[3] If a book has more than one format available, Calibre automatically chooses the best format when uploading to the device.^{[1] “ (1)}

With the Kindle and the Barnes and Noble Nook you can download books anytime from anywhere with their Wi-Fi and 3G capability. My personal favorite is the Sony (PRS600BC) because of its functionality and ease of use.

Whatever your interest or need is, the ever growing Electronic book reader market is growing rapidly and a wide range of ebook readers are now available offering hours of reading pleasure to an increasingly intelligent population. The download time needed to retrieve books from the internet happens - literally - in seconds.

Enjoy a well written book!!

Cybersleuth

(1)Wikipedia.org, Calibre (Software)